


dregs in a pot

by Hueyhuey



Series: big bad bright fireworks [3]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety, Aunt May is perfect, Identity Reveal, Matt Murdock's tragic childhood, Nelson & Murdock & Page, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, drug dealers, legalese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:54:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hueyhuey/pseuds/Hueyhuey
Summary: The world comes crashing down one morning when May stumbles through the doorway after a night shift and throws her bag across the countertop, where it slides to a stop in front of Peter’s cereal bowl. Her sleep-deprived eyes meet his and he sees his life flash in the distance between them. She cracks her mouth into a smile and sighs out, “I found one.”(The Parkers are having issues with lawyers in Queens. Aunt May just wants to get some paperwork sorted and Peter just wants to meet Daredevil. Fortunately, these goals align quite neatly.)
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker & Wade Wilson, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Series: big bad bright fireworks [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543033
Comments: 7
Kudos: 643
Collections: ellie marvel fics - read





	dregs in a pot

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the third installment of this series. It's a big ole Frankenstein. I swear I wrote all but the last 100 words of this in one sitting over break and then school hit me like a brick wall. Many apologies. This is largely unedited so sorry about that too.
> 
> There is an account of a scenario resembling that of symptoms of a panic attack in this. Peter's potty mouth also features heavily. Please do what you must to be safe.

Aunt May has been looking for a decent lawyer within a thirty block radius of their home for upwards of three months. Now, Peter is not a betting man, but if he ever chooses to become one, all of his money is going towards Aunt May dying by cardiovascular disease before she ever finds a well-meaning lawyer headquartered in Queens. 

Last month she’d exhausted her connections with Ben’s old colleagues and ended up screaming into the void on top of their apartment building at three in the morning. This exercise in futility was facilitated by the entirety of the meager remnants of hard liquor still remaining in their cabinets. Peter had found her there, dead asleep, at the end of his patrol. He’d chucked the empty bottles over the side of the building before hefting his aunt down the stairs and into their unit. 

This month’s theme seems to be the stretching of the limits of May’s relationships with her fellow medical personnel. So far, Peter has had to come and extract her from three near fights outside the doors of the ER in the past four weeks. He’s been seriously concerned about her for a while now, but this erratic behavior has really pushed his concern into the seldom-charted territory of primal fear. 

He hasn’t mustered up the courage to ask May why she needs a lawyer so badly, but he knows that it has to do with Ben’s life insurance. His uncle is a subject they still have trouble addressing head-on. Peter can’t remember a conversation about Ben that hasn’t ended in hours of tears and gratuitous amounts of ice cream. Peter can empathize with May’s uncharacteristic reaction to whatever is bothering her, especially if it violates her self-imposed Ben taboo.

The world comes crashing down one morning when May stumbles through the doorway after a night shift and throws her bag across the countertop, where it slides to a stop in front of Peter’s cereal bowl. Her sleep-deprived eyes meet his and he sees his life flash in the distance between them. She cracks her mouth into a smile and sighs out, “I found one.”

Peter feels the peanut gallery in his mind cheering and giving glory to heaven above. He fumbles for a response. All he can manage to get out is, “Oh?”

“Yes! Peter, you know Claire? From Harlem? You know Claire. She was over for an evaluation and we ended up catching up and I asked about it and she gave me the card of an attorney who does a lot of pro bono work over in Hell’s Kitchen. Best part? He’s willing to come to us! Peter, do you not understand what this means?”

“Yeah, I get it, Aunt May, geez.” What he doesn’t vocalize is how she should really sit down. Maybe take a few deep breaths. Don’t go passing out on anyone, now.

“Pete! I don’t have to take off work! I called him and he’s coming this weekend! How many lawyers do you know who would be willing to do that, hm?” Aunt May looks like she wants to clock someone. Peter instinctually maps the number of available exits. Hm. Not enough to put his id at rest. Need to do something about that. 

“May. May. I’m very excited for yo--”

“I know! Me too! Pete, we’re going to be okay.”

“Mhm. Mkay, that’s very, very nice. Awesome, in fact. You wanna have a seat? Drink some water? Can I convince you to take a nap?”

“You’re coming with me to meet him, love.”

The lawyer’s name is Franklin “Foggy” Nelson and the Spidey Sense cannot fucking stand him. He has incredibly well-groomed hair and a tan trench coat that could be hiding any number of secrets. When he approaches the outdoor seating of the cafe that Peter and May are stationed at, the entirety of Peter’s spinal cord tries to escape out his throat. He forces himself to sit still and bear witness to the lawyer shaking hands with his aunt. When Foggy Nelson smiles and introduces himself to Peter, he can’t make himself shake hands with the extended appendage. Not with that haircut and those teeth and that watch.

Foggy Nelson sits down after an awkward beat and makes a bit of small talk with May. The Spidey Sense freaks every time he clasps his hands on the tabletop or brushes his hair back and out of his face. Peter squints at him, trying to figure out what could be so dangerous about this man. Everything about him is absolutely mundane; everything about him sets off alarm bells in Peter’s head. 

“--partner will be here in about thirty minutes, he had to finish up with a client back at the office. I figured we could get into it then?”

May nods as if this is the most reasonable request anyone has ever made. Peter stares at her, and then at Foggy Nelson, who catches his eye and winks good-naturedly. 

Nope, nuh-uh, goodbye, see you two in half an hour when crazy number two shows up. Peter grabs the strap of his backpack and whispers to Aunt May that he’s taking a walk. He shoves the chair back and strides off to go boulder up a fire escape. 

The last thing he hears before rounding the corner is May apologizing and saying, “He’s got a thing about trench coats.”

Traitor.

When Peter returns from his impromptu rock-climbing practice, May and Foggy Nelson are chatting over cooling coffee. A giant file full of papers is open and strewn about the table between them. 

Peter reinserts himself into the clusterfuck of documents and steals May’s mug from her hands. He tunes into the Spidey Sense as he listens to Foggy Nelson spew legal jargon. May is attentive as ever, and the Sense seems to have come to terms with this man’s existence and proximity because it is not immediately alarmed when he shifts position. Maybe it’s due to the fact that the trench coat is gone, the sleeves are shoved up the forearms, the tie is loosened, and the hair is thrown back into a tiny bun on top of his head. 

Maybe the Spidey Sense is classist. That’s something to experiment with later. 

Peter tries to pay attention to the papers laid before him, but most of it is nonsensical crap about financial literacy and the inner workings of the insurance industry. There are stacks of thick papers placed off to the side that appear to be completely blank, and he ends up zoning off wondering what those could possibly be there for. He looks boredly into the dregs of coffee swirling the bottom of the cup in his hands for answers and completely misses it when the fourth chair is pulled out and sat in.

The noise startles him and he looks up. The opaque red shades and matching chestnut hair of Matt Murdock are what greet him. He’s shaking hands with May and apologizing for holding them up. Something low and feral gets caught in Peter’s throat when he feels the Spidey Sense start up again. Matt smiles in his direction and Peter can’t help but wonder how he knows he’s there. 

Matt pulls the set of papers, which Peter now realizes are printed in braille, towards himself and says, “Please, continue.” 

If the Sense hated Foggy, it goes absolutely apeshit at the sight of Murdock’s hands tracing the raised bumps on the paper. Those hands are far too close to him. And they’re really, really scarred up. There are bruises adorning each and every knuckle and fresh cracks on half as many. Peter thinks back to his first interaction with the man, when he mentioned that he went to a boxing gym.

Ain’t that something?

Matt flips a page and every single alarm bell that has ever existed goes off in Peter’s head again.

May nudges him under the table and he realizes he’s making a face like he just sucked a lemon. He wipes his expression and watches as Matt leans into Foggy Nelson to ask something. 

The business card buried in the bottom of his bag burns a hole in his conscience.

Wade had implored him not to seek Matt Murdock out, but is it really his fault if the guy literally falls into his lap? He’s been trying to avoid him, believe it or not. He’d dug into a couple of the guy’s most famous cases, found out he defended the Punisher (largely in absentia) and lost the trial, and promptly decided that he would stop pulling shit up. It’s just too juicy a prize to chase. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Peter doesn’t particularly want his ass handed to him by Wade any time in the near future. It’s happened before. 

He blurts out, “You guys have an office together?” before he can stop himself. 

Foggy looks up at him from the middle of a huge packet. He glances at Matt, who shrugs in Peter’s direction. Matt says, “Yeah, I guess. We’re kind of working halfway out of our old one. You know, moving and all that.”

Foggy snickers and adds, “What Matt’s just failed to mention is that we were working out of a butcher shop for a few months. Most of our paper files are still back there, but we take cases out of our new place. We only got out of the old one because Karen was complaining that all of her paperwork smelled like meat.”

Aunt May perks up at the mention of that name. “Who’s Karen?”

“She’s our third half.”

“Karen Page, right? The reporter?”

“One and only. She does a lot of the investigative stuff for our criminal cases, so you all probably won’t be seeing much of her.”

Foggy Nelson and May dive back into the paperwork after that, and Peter occupies himself by watching Murdock’s fingers reading page after page of documents and records. The guy is damn fast; Peter speculates that he’s reading faster than any sighted person can.

Murdock sniffs and shoves his glasses up his nose. Peter follows the movement and finds those glasses staring in his direction. He averts his gaze. The Spidey Sense resumes its shrieking. Wade surfaces in his consciousness, warning him about the dangers of the man sitting across from him. 

Peter can’t stand to be at this table anymore. The air is thick with shame and gratitude and secrets and an overwhelming longing for his uncle that wafts up from the papers. He tucks into Aunt May’s side and whispers, “I’m going to take another walk.”

She furrows her eyebrows at him and squeezes his hand under the table. “Okay. Stay safe. Love you.”

He forces a reassuring smile and pushes the chair back. He shoves his hands into his pockets and lets his feet choose a direction. 

He finds himself following the route of one of his rooftop patrols from the street. The sounds of the city fail to drown out the mounting buzzing in his head. Peter finds an alley to duck into and pulls out his earbuds. 

He watches the journey of drops of water from the bottom of a garbage can to the ground as he wills himself to settle. It’s always so much easier to release his anxious energy when he’s in the suit; if something is stressing him out, he takes it out on whatever physical threat is in proximity. Anxious Peter Parker is much more difficult to pin down. He’s grappled with the feeling for far longer and in turn, it has evolved into a more resilient beast.

Since Peter has become Spider-Man, the biggest difference that he’s noticed is how he deals with triggers. He used to avoid his triggers, building them up into huge, insurmountable obstacles in life that couldn’t be dealt with. Now, he runs towards them head-on when he’s in the suit. He’s figured out how to manipulate his anxiety, make it manifest in ways that are advantageous to him. Spider-Man has a visceral, untamable anxiety that sharpens his reflexes and drives his decision-making.

Outside the suit, he finds more difficulty returning to that single-minded headspace. His thoughts whip around, spurred by the still new Spidey Sense and impossible to collect. He’s found that sensory overload is a very real danger when he’s in a state like the one he’s in right now.

Aunt May’s voice reminds him to breathe through the tightness. Wade’s informs him that if it’s preferable to have Deadpool crushing his chest instead of intense dread, all he has to do is ask. Peter hunches against the bricks at his back and turns his music up. It starts to drizzle. The drip of the water from the garbage bag picks up momentum.

Peter closes his eyes. He breathes with more purpose.

A hand knocks softly on the brick next to his right arm. 

Peter’s brain whites out in panic and when it returns, he’s got Matt Murdock’s arm twisted behind his head and the guy’s face shoved up against the wall. He lets go in horror and shock, but when Matt turns around, he’s grinning. He repositions his glasses and chuckles, shaking his arm out. Peter stares, incredulous. He asks, “Dude, I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

Matt flashes another smile and says, “I’m the one who should be apologizing. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Thought you saw me coming. Impressive trick you’ve got there.”

Peter clutches his chest, willing his heart to slow down. He pants into the silence.

Matt’s smile vanishes and he takes a step off of the wall. “Are you okay?”

Peter turns, paces in a little circle. “Sorry, sorry. Give--gimme a minute.”

A jumpscare is the opposite of what he’d needed. His ribs clench tighter over his diaphragm. His heart refuses to cooperate. He backs up and bumps into the wall. Slides down until his knees are tucked in front of him, ignoring the catch of his shirt on the bricks. 

Matt gets on his level, edges closer. The Spidey Sense remains dormant, or maybe Peter can’t feel it through the pounding of his heart. He’s really fucked now, started hyperventilating and his hands are clammy and shaking. He closes deeper into himself. Matt stops scooching about five feet away from him. He crosses his legs and waits as Peter’s senses fade in and out of operation.

After some time has passed, Matt begins to speak. “When I was a little younger than you, I’d get overwhelmed at every little bit of sensory input. Everything made me panic. I’d just lost my sight, and my dad, who was kind of my coping mechanism, died pretty soon after that. I remember one day I woke up and I could hear some kids on the other side of the room talking and each word that came out of their mouths was like someone was hitting my head with a crowbar. I spent a lot of time with my head under a pillow, just trying to figure out how to handle it all.

It took a long fucking time for me to figure out how to piece it all together, and I couldn’t have done it without a couple of people helping me out along the way.” He lapses into silence. 

Peter realizes that he’s starting to take deeper and deeper breaths. He removes his head from his leg cocoon. He levels his gaze at Matt. “Where do I find people?”

“Depends. Mine found me. It’ll happen. Probably already has.”

Thanks, man. That’s not cryptic at all. Yeah, I’ll just go and get someone mid-fucking-New York who’s already found me. What the hell.

Matt unfolds himself and stands. “Welp, if your sarcasm’s back online you’re probably good to go. C’mon, we’re missing some absolutely enthralling discussion about this country’s insurance industry.” He offers a bruised hand to Peter. Peter takes it.

“How’d you even know I was back here?”

“Easy. Asked the street vendors if they’d seen a mopey teen with a coffee stain on his shirt pass by. Took me all of five minutes to find you.”

Peter looks down. Sure enough, a big brown spot has dampened the front of his shirt. He can even smell it now that it’s been pointed out to him. Fuck all.

Peter curses his sticky hands and coffee mug handles as he stands. He glances at Matt and thinks. Says, “I don’t know any etiquette for guiding, but I’d be happy to if you’d like it.”

Matt smiles and says, “Just hold your arm out. I’ll do the rest.”

Peter ends up digging the business card out of the bottom of his bag twice more over the course of the next couple of months. Nelson, Murdock, and Page are unyieldingly accommodating, and Aunt May spends many a weekend over in Hell’s Kitchen in an effort to assuage her building guilt over cheaping them out on their services. 

Peter meets Karen Page, who crushes his bones with her handshake before offering him a mint lifesaver from her skirt pocket. He refuses, but she and Aunt May make fast friends. May discovers a new retailer from which to purchase skirts with pockets in them, and Karen somehow deduces that she has discovered plant people within five minutes of knowing them. She does with that information what any strong-willed antagonistic office-sharer would; Peter is sure that Foggy Nelson doesn’t appreciate the wealth of houseplants soon invading the nooks and crannies of their small workspace. All of the ones near Murdock’s side seem to disappear.

He likes Ms. Page. She takes no shit but dishes out so much of it. She’s the only one who gets an honorific before her name. The other two are ‘Foggy Nelson’, and ‘Matt’ or ‘Murdock’, respectively. He visits their hectic office every week or so after school to drop off assorted papers and payment and baked goods. Without exception, he tries and fails to escape before getting roped into a conversation with one or more of them. Inevitably, he is asked to help out with office work. 

Some of this office work belongs to the ever-expanding category of mundane and unskilled labor, such as stacking cardboard boxes of old files for Ms. Page or sorting papers for Matt and Foggy Nelson. 

More often than not, the office work is more involved and less conventional. He has been asked to fix a thirty-three-year-old fax machine and eat five different varieties of meat pies to free up space in the fridge. Both of these events occurred in the same afternoon. 

On one memorable occasion, Peter recalls walking in on Murdock with his fist on a collision course with his computer tower. He’d had to talk him out of destroying it, and it’d taken another five minutes before the man was calm enough to formulate a complete sentence. 

Matt had been intent on destroying the computer because his screen reader “gave him a headache worse than a morning after a night with Jess.”

Peter still has no idea who Jess is. He’s too afraid to ask, because the one time he’d tried to bring it up with Foggy Nelson, the guy began welling up with tears on the spot.

So now Peter is occasionally a screen reader for Murdock because the man has broken seven sets of earbuds over the past month and a half.

Foggy Nelson has taken to referring to Peter as “the light of Matt’s goddamned life” when he thinks that Peter isn’t listening. Ms. Page always snorts at him, but she has yet to correct him. From her, that’s a glowing endorsement.

He never discovers Wade’s beef with Matt. For most of the couple of months that the firm is working on the Parker’s various cases, Wade is overseas shooting his way through a remote international crime syndicate headquartered mid-Siberian wasteland. His only correspondence with him is a couple of pictures of limbs in varying states of frostbitten decay and appropriately disgusted emoji reactions. 

Wade calls him about a week after Aunt May has stopped chewing her nails raw to tell Peter that he’s back stateside. He ends the call with a proposition for a job that Peter can’t refuse. 

“You want to meet Daredevil?”

Well motherfuck, old man. Why didn’t you open with that? “Of fucking course I want to meet Daredevil. Didn’t you see the file? Did I show you the file? I’m gonna show him the file. You think he’d appreciate it?.”

It takes Peter a couple of seconds to realize that Wade has hung up. His phone buzzes in his hand and a time and address pops up above a text that reads: “if youre late, ill slice you to bits xoxo”

The job is in Hell’s Kitchen, which of course it is. Wade told him to come in street clothes, so he’s limited to the sidewalks and the subway as his modes of transport. Peter hasn’t been over on this side of Manhattan in a minute, and he gets lost amidst the inertia of the pedestrians on his way over. Navigating the space between the buildings is so much easier when he’s midair.

He strolls up to the address and casually ducks into the alley that Wade described in the message as second least sanitary. It seems like he’s the first one to arrive, so he settles in beside the dumpster for the long haul. He sets his backpack down and pulls out the ski mask he grabbed from May’s junk drawer. Hopefully Daredevil doesn’t have laser vision. He checks over the suit before confirming that the file he promised to bring is still there.

Wade stomps in a couple of minutes later, and suddenly the dumpster beside Peter comes alive. 

Daredevil appears in front of him out of nowhere, and Peter connects the dots. The Devil had used the lid to soften his landing from the fire escape. How long had he been there? “Were you spying on me? Why are you in the suit?”

Daredevil crosses his arms and nods at Wade. Peter’s put out--he didn’t come here to be ignored. 

“Dude, I made a file on you! From when you took that bullet, remember? Wanna see it? All of the people I talked to were so mad that you weren’t dead. One of them even called you a--”

Wade tosses an arm around Peter and draws him near. He gets a whiff of a strong cleaning agent from Wade’s civvies before he’s smothered by the guy’s armpit. Wade says, “El Diablo is going to break down what he’s trying to accomplish here, boyo. Be a dear and don’t interrupt him.”

Peter pushes his way out of Wade’s grip. Daredevil is staring down at him, unimpressed. The guy is damn intimidating. Peter misses the little devil horns from the old suit. He’s always wanted to boop them.

“I got a tip that a group of dealers is having an exchange a couple of blocks over in about forty minutes. They’re some of the predominant suppliers of hard drugs around here. They deal not just for Hell’s Kitchen, but for most of this side of Manhattan. If we can infiltrate them and take down as many as possible, the entire hierarchy will falter. 

I’ve got an in with them, but they only know me as a civilian. I need you two to pose as interested buyers with big connections. It’ll encourage them to trust me and I’ll be able to get in deeper with them.”

Peter considers the silence that follows. He knows that Wade is in, and in all honesty he’s not eager to back out now. It’ll be risky, and it could compromise his identity, but if it screws up the drug trade in such a significant region it’s sure to have ripple effects all over the city. It’s an opportunity that’s hard to pass up. Peter asks, “Are you planning on busting them tonight?”

“No. I need more time to plan the attack and collect a couple more resources. This is big: I doubt the three of us will be able to handle it alone. Going to see if I can bring in some more help in the next week or so.”

Peter wonders how he manages to keep his voice so low and gravelly for so long. It’s obviously affected, but the guy has it down to a science. He never once wavers. 

Wade stretches beside him and pops his back. He turns to Peter and says, “Whaddaya say, bub? You up for being my corrupt power-hungry capitalist pig-son? Together, you and I could push so much meth.”

Peter chuckles and replies, “I’m up for it. It’d be nice seeing what the bad guys do when they aren’t actively trying to kill me.”

Daredevil tilts his head. “Haven’t been on a lot of stakeouts, huh, kid?”

Fuck you. Peter’s grown. He’s about to offer crazy drug dealers millions of dollars for hundreds of pounds of hallucinogens. That right there, that’s adult shit.

He’s sent to a nearby roof to shuffle his civvies around so he no longer looks like “such a goddamned youth”, as Wade so helpfully supplies. He takes his ski mask off and the cool night air feels immediately freeing. He needs to get out without the suit more. Swinging with nothing blocking his face may just be the best sensation that exists. 

Peter inhales deeply for a minute or so. He’s nervous to do this. He knows that Wade will do most of the work for him, but placing himself into such a vulnerable position (even with backup) feels wrong. He’s never had to go undercover for a job before--maybe this will be a learning experience for him. 

Speaking of learning experiences, is Daredevil going to expose his face? The black mask isn’t exactly inconspicuous. Peter wonders if he’s got some sort of disguising technology, or if he’s finally gained the guy’s trust. 

He returns to the alley in time to find Wade bickering with a rat over the fate of a fast-food wrapper. The rat bites his hand and escapes with the garbage, victorious. Wade curses it out as it scampers off. 

Peter clears his throat and says, “Am I interrupting something?”

Wade turns to him but continues to glare after the rat. “That fucker was littering.”

“Yeah, but it was a rat.”

“No fucking excuses.”

Mkay. Whatever. “Are you at least vaccinated?”

“Bub, I’ve died more times in the past year than I can count on my fingers. I don’t think rabies is what’s gonna do me in.”

Peter opens his mouth to rebuke him.

And then his lawyer strolls into the alley.

Wearing gloves and combat boots and a familiar khaki trench coat and black Ray-Bans. 

Without a cane.

Peter gapes.

Wade rubs his hands together when he sees him and says, “Good, we can get to it before I die of hypothermia.”

Murdock stops in front of the two of them and crosses his arms and grits out, “Peter,” and suddenly it’s Daredevil standing before them.

Peter sees it now. The holster for the billy clubs is outlined just below his hip. The crooked shape of his nose exactly matches that of Daredevil’s under the mask. The gloves are reinforced around the joints and now that there is light shining on the opaque glasses, Peter can see that they are tinted deep red. 

“Holy shit.”

Murdock--really, truly Murdock--sighs. “We’ve got twenty minutes, kid.”

“Holy shit! How many times have you broken your nose?”

Wade smacks him upside the head, but Matt laughs. “Couple of weeks ago was the fifth time on the job.”

Peter whacks Wade in retaliation. “I’m--wow. Wow. Okay, this makes so much sense. But you’re definitely blind. Like, there’s no other reason you’d put up with that computer. No one would willingly do that to themselves .”

Matt grins and his teeth are so obviously Daredevil’s that Peter can’t fathom that he didn’t connect the dots before. “Yeah, I’m blind. I’ll show you how it works later. I’m not blind tonight, though. We’re all just assholes who wear sunglasses in the dark. Here.”

He holds out two pairs of shades identical to his own. Peter puts them on and immediately feels cooler. They even make Wade look more human. Guy could be hiding eyebrows under those things. 

Peter looks up at Murdock in wonder and says, “I have so many questions.”

Wade groans from where he’s plastered himself all over the wall. He whines, “Petey, I love you and your infinite pool of curiosity, but we gotta go.”

“Dude, I’m having one of the biggest revelations of my life! My lawyer moonlights as a vigilante! And not just any vigilante. He’s freaking Daredevil! Nothing makes sense! Oh god, you weren’t at the gym that night, were you?”

Matt pats him on the head. Then, ignoring his question, he turns and makes his way to the mouth of the alley. He calls back, “Let’s go buy some coke!”

Wade heaves himself up and grabs Peter’s arm, letting out a thundering, “That’s what I’m talking about!” as they emerge from the alley.

Peter’s thoughts are whirling around his head at a million miles an hour. He’s entirely lost track of what he’s supposed to focus on for the integrity of the mission. He can’t remember his cover’s backstory or their goal in infiltrating this meeting or anything at all. But he’s not Peter Parker tonight, and he’s not Spider-Man either. He’s sitting somewhere in between, far removed from the various frenzied aspects of his identities. 

Hell, if Matt Murdock can pretend to be a sighted purchaser of narcotics and maintain his dual identity at the same time, Peter can suck it up for a night. He’ll puff up his chest and growl at some bad guys and use Wade as a human shield if shit goes sideways.

**Author's Note:**

> In conclusion fuck Freud. Peter is big stress and would you look at that, I'm big stress too!
> 
> I made a tumblr but I'm too lazy to figure out how to properly link it because it's late thirty. Here's something, not sure how well it'll work. I'm going to bed now.
> 
> https://hueyhuee.tumblr.com/


End file.
